Context for this poem: a number of my favorite college friends are graduating this year (2019). This poem is for them. Though it can also be read as a graceful sort of tantrum.
I tend to take things as givens
If it’s whole and unbreakable at one point then
Of course, it will always be
Especially when I carry bonds that stretch across years and lifetimes
A connection forged out of misadventure and memory and more than what words can name
A click between entities
A tie that can’t be broken
When they would tell me the sun shines brightest just before it sets I never could believe them
Because you – me – we – all of us together made the most brilliant star in my own patch sky
We
Were everything
We
Could forge paths through deserts
We
Would forge handprints in constellations
I never wanted any of us to end, but
How can anyone expect to carve monuments in nothing more than sand
To split from the path you’ve tread for years is like separating one limb from another
When you took your own paths you took parts of me with you
When I turn around I can see your footprints tracing mine halfway and then some and then none
And now it’s just my own feet leaving marks on the dunes
Tiny little flecks
On an earth so big
Under a sky that never seems to end, and –
Oh, it’s hard to say goodbye when there are so many paths we haven’t walked, when we have so many stories left to tell
So tell me,
My friend,
When will I see you again?